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The Bridgerton Episode
44 Plays4 years ago
We breakdown the FDS themes in Shonda Rimes' hit show on Netflix, Bridgerton! Anthony is annoying. Lady Featherington is a real one. Daphne and The Duke....Well...
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Transcript
Introduction and 'Bridgerton' Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome ladies and gentlemen of the pod to the female dating strategy podcast.
00:00:07
Speaker
Today we're going to talk about those scandalous Bridgertons and the scheming Featheringtons and the handsome Duke of Hastings.
00:00:16
Speaker
I'm your host, Lady Whistlerow.
00:00:19
Speaker
And I'm Lady Lilith.
00:00:21
Speaker
And I am Lady Savannah.
00:00:23
Speaker
And today we're going to, see I went to Cockney, didn't I?
00:00:27
Speaker
I was going to like Australian sort of.
00:00:32
Speaker
And today we'll be talking about Bridgerton.
00:00:34
Speaker
A Bridgerton family.
00:00:37
Speaker
Was that good?
00:00:38
Speaker
That was A1.
00:00:39
Speaker
That was brilliant.
00:00:40
Speaker
I loved it.
00:00:42
Speaker
Okay, Lilith, you do it.
00:00:43
Speaker
Go for it.
00:00:45
Speaker
Okay, three, two, one.
00:00:47
Speaker
Welcome to the Female Dating Strategy
Initial Reactions and Shonda Rhimes' Influence
00:00:50
Speaker
Podcast.
00:00:51
Speaker
I am your host, Lady Lilith, and I'm here with my guests, Lady Whistlerow.
00:00:57
Speaker
And Lady Savannah.
00:01:00
Speaker
And today we will be talking about... Oh, fuck, I can't do the excerpt.
00:01:06
Speaker
And today we'll be talking about Bridgerton.
00:01:11
Speaker
Anyways, no more accents.
00:01:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:15
Speaker
Today we're going to be talking about Bridgerton.
00:01:17
Speaker
Woo!
00:01:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:18
Speaker
Woo-hoo!
00:01:19
Speaker
So, the hot and scandalous new show on Netflix.
00:01:23
Speaker
And we're going to see... How did everybody feel about it?
00:01:26
Speaker
Because my...
00:01:27
Speaker
I'm going to give you my initial reaction and then you guys tell me what you think.
00:01:30
Speaker
Initial reaction, I actually really love the show.
00:01:32
Speaker
It's pure Shonda Rhimes, right?
00:01:36
Speaker
It's got the complicated female characters, no heroes, no real villains, complex storytelling.
00:01:44
Speaker
And I know she adapted and already, I know they changed some things for the show itself and she adapted a text from a book, but I think it really had a very Shonda Rhimes feel to it.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:57
Speaker
Should I give my initial reaction to Bridgert?
Main Characters: Simon and Daphne's Flaws
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, initial reaction.
00:02:00
Speaker
Okay, so, yes, it was very Shonda Rhimes.
00:02:03
Speaker
However, I hated the characters so much.
00:02:05
Speaker
Like, the whole time, the whole time, and this is not like Shonda Rhimes, this is like the whoever wrote the book.
00:02:12
Speaker
That's their fault.
00:02:14
Speaker
uh and i absolutely hated simon i hated daphne i i didn't like simon either yeah the whole time i was watching i'm like screaming because like daphne is like like why would you go for the fuck boy when there's like prince frederick right there he seems like such a like you two have like the same goals you both want to have a family why are you gonna go for the guy that's like doesn't want to have kids if you want kids like just doesn't make any fucking sense
00:02:38
Speaker
Yeah, there's some problematic themes
Women's Roles and Societal Norms
00:02:40
Speaker
in the show, which I think we should dissect a little bit for sure.
00:02:43
Speaker
What about you, Savannah?
00:02:45
Speaker
So, initial impressions was that it was really well made.
00:02:48
Speaker
I thought it was very true to the era.
00:02:50
Speaker
But I didn't really like...
00:02:54
Speaker
I guess this was a symptom of old, you know, older society, but just the whole idea that women have to be picked.
00:03:03
Speaker
Oh, for sure.
00:03:06
Speaker
The whole system is a pick me system.
00:03:08
Speaker
And it's going to be complicated because we're going to try to talk about this show while ignoring that it's basically female sexual slavery, where there's this auctioning off these girls to...
00:03:19
Speaker
Whatever
Lady Featherington: Villain or Realist?
00:03:20
Speaker
old man wants them, you know, it's kind of gross when you think about really what's happening in the nitty gritty of that.
00:03:26
Speaker
But I think there's some, I think there's enough themes in the show to make it a salvageable show worth viewing and discussing.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's good, interesting themes to dissect.
00:03:37
Speaker
Although I will say that, like, I'm kind of a, like, historical costume nerd sort of person.
00:03:44
Speaker
Like, I'm really interested in, like, historical fashion history.
00:03:48
Speaker
And it just drove me crazy.
00:03:49
Speaker
They're using, like, machine embroidery.
00:03:52
Speaker
And the, like, there's so many, like...
00:03:56
Speaker
of the costumes that to me were just like like it looks too perfect it's well because back then they didn't have machine embroidery you'd be making like embroidery by hand you wouldn't have the whole dress be embroidered you'd have it like in certain you know strategic areas right so that just like that was just something that just drove me crazy the whole time i was watching it but other than that yeah i'd say it was on the hair and makeup and stuff yeah that that was also more
Historical Inaccuracies in 'Bridgerton'
00:04:20
Speaker
modern it
00:04:20
Speaker
makeup and then the fact that they were using modern music.
00:04:24
Speaker
I think they had a bunch of Ariana Grande songs that they then put to music, put to classical music.
00:04:30
Speaker
They had Thank You Next playing in the background, which I thought was very appropriate for that scene.
00:04:34
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah, I enjoyed it.
00:04:37
Speaker
I enjoyed it overall, but there are some elements to it that I think we should talk about.
00:04:43
Speaker
I think I'll start on, let's discuss who your favorite character was.
00:04:48
Speaker
Either your favorite character, meaning I love the energy of this character, or your favorite character to hate, like where you're just looking at them like, every time you come on the screen, you just remind me of something negative, right?
00:05:01
Speaker
So to kick that off, I think that...
00:05:06
Speaker
My favorite character is Lady Featherington.
00:05:09
Speaker
And she's somewhat controversial because they definitely set her up to be the villain early on.
00:05:15
Speaker
So in the first couple of episodes, you see her and she's kind of a gossip and a busybody.
00:05:21
Speaker
And she's very short with people.
00:05:25
Speaker
And she seems really, I mean, she's just like all of them, but she's very, very obsessed with trying to get her daughters married off well.
00:05:33
Speaker
And one of the things that she does, or one of the things that makes her an unlikable character is when she's charged with taking in her niece or husband's niece, Marina, she's very kind of dismissive and a little bit cruel to her because she doesn't like that Marina's drawing more attention from suitors than her daughters are.
00:05:55
Speaker
So she's kind of like acting like, oh, this girl's in our way and she's a burden.
00:06:00
Speaker
And that kind of makes her seem like very jealous and petty.
00:06:02
Speaker
Where I think she ends up kind of redeeming herself later on is when it's revealed that Marina's pregnant.
00:06:10
Speaker
Spoiler alert for everybody.
00:06:11
Speaker
This is a spoiler full episode.
00:06:14
Speaker
If you haven't actually watched the show, then...
00:06:16
Speaker
watch it, then come back and listen to this.
00:06:18
Speaker
But she finds out Marina's pregnant.
00:06:20
Speaker
And then you kind of see her make a lot of tough choices to kind of get Marina to understand that she's got to make tough choices,
Marina's Pregnancy and Societal Pressures
00:06:30
Speaker
right?
00:06:30
Speaker
So the backstory in that is Marina comes to their family.
00:06:35
Speaker
Marina's pregnant.
00:06:36
Speaker
Marina got pregnant by, I think, a boy that lived near her farm and went off to war.
00:06:44
Speaker
So the whole show, she's writing this guy letters.
00:06:47
Speaker
You know, she doesn't hear back from him and finds out she's pregnant.
00:06:52
Speaker
And Lady Featherington finds out she's pregnant because she never has her period in the entire time that she's there.
00:06:58
Speaker
So Lady Featherington, to me, as unlikable as she was for the first couple episodes, towards the middle, you're like, this woman's actually very smart and kind of a boss because she basically is the one that comes back to Marinette and is like,
00:07:14
Speaker
Sis.
00:07:14
Speaker
He's not texting you back.
00:07:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:16
Speaker
He's not coming back.
00:07:17
Speaker
Right.
00:07:17
Speaker
Exactly.
00:07:17
Speaker
And I'm linking like if I was, if she came to us and I was in that position to help her and I was like, we would give her that FDS hard lesson to like, do you know how many boys out here say they love you just to get in your pants?
00:07:28
Speaker
This like he ain't coming back.
00:07:30
Speaker
He hasn't written you back.
00:07:31
Speaker
And it's been months.
00:07:33
Speaker
You're holding onto a pipe dream and you're not paying attention to all the suitors in front of you.
00:07:38
Speaker
who could potentially give you a much better situation than this guy anyways, because I think he wasn't very rich as well, if he's a soldier.
00:07:45
Speaker
He was like a soldier.
00:07:46
Speaker
He was poor, right?
00:07:47
Speaker
So she's saying, like, you have an opportunity to marry up who could give you a much better life, right?
00:07:52
Speaker
Yeah, right in front of you, for that matter, versus this guy who she's holding on to who didn't know what's going on with him.
00:07:58
Speaker
So...
00:07:59
Speaker
I I'm gonna tell you where I where I felt like yes queen when she took her to that alleyway where you saw all the very very poor people and she's like girl if you don't get your shit together and get some of this rich dick while it's free and available to you you might end up destitute with you and your child right and I was kind of like you know what this is like a hard lesson to learn but it's also it's real you know
00:08:24
Speaker
And even in that scene, Lady Featherington was portrayed as like, oh, you're like classist because, you know, you're making it, you're saying, oh, look at these like, you know, poor people, you could end up like them.
00:08:35
Speaker
Marina says something like, oh, I'm, all I'm seeing are like good, hardworking people.
00:08:40
Speaker
And Marina almost is portrayed as like the good person in that scene.
00:08:44
Speaker
And Featherington is portrayed as like the bad guy or the villain.
00:08:48
Speaker
I don't see it that way.
00:08:49
Speaker
I think she's a realist.
00:08:50
Speaker
Like, you know, it's not, they're literally living in a society that is classist.
00:08:55
Speaker
Like you have to be, you have to be realistic about the world that you're living in.
00:08:59
Speaker
Right.
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:00
Speaker
She doesn't, and she doesn't, they don't say anything about her having any type of education or anything that may, or even a skill that makes us feel like she could support
Parenting Styles: Featherington vs. Bridgerton
00:09:10
Speaker
herself on her own.
00:09:11
Speaker
So it kind of comes across as like,
00:09:14
Speaker
It just comes across like we're watching this low-moving train wreck where she rejects all the suitors.
00:09:20
Speaker
And then I guess she was hidden away for a while.
00:09:23
Speaker
But then it's like she doesn't advocate on her own behalf because she's spending so much time pining away from this guy who she cannot even get a letter back from.
00:09:32
Speaker
And we're just like, oh, my God.
00:09:34
Speaker
But there was definitely a pivot after they had that conversation.
00:09:38
Speaker
And you could see... Actually, the pivot actually happened when...
00:09:42
Speaker
Lady Featherington, which was a little bit cruel, but she forges a letter from Marina's boyfriend, George, saying that basically, I'm not going to see you anymore.
00:09:53
Speaker
And she justifies it by saying, you know what, this is for her own good.
00:09:57
Speaker
She's got to learn about men sooner or later.
00:10:01
Speaker
And it's better she learns sooner while she's not showing so we can get her married off.
00:10:06
Speaker
And
00:10:07
Speaker
She can cry about this later, right?
00:10:10
Speaker
She's basically like, you can mourn the loss of this love later.
00:10:13
Speaker
Right now, we got to get you somewhere where you can be set up and taken care of.
00:10:17
Speaker
And in those days, it was very much like you get married or you're a prostitute or you starve to death.
00:10:24
Speaker
Like there's women didn't, there wasn't, even if she did have an education or skills, it would be irrelevant because, you know, unless you were straight up like working class and we're going to be like a, I don't know, a washer woman or something like that, or a servant, which, you know.
00:10:39
Speaker
It's a whole other discussion.
00:10:41
Speaker
But for a lot of women, yeah, like she was a single mother.
00:10:44
Speaker
Like it's different from being working class and at least married to being a full on single mother.
00:10:49
Speaker
Like she was in a very dire situation.
00:10:52
Speaker
And I'm sure these sorts of situations happened all the time, you know, before safe and legal abortion was the thing that women had access to.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:01
Speaker
So I see Lady Featherington as, like, a realist in that sort of situation.
00:11:06
Speaker
And also, even her wanting to marry off her own daughters, like, good.
00:11:11
Speaker
You know, she wants to marry her daughter.
00:11:14
Speaker
She wants her daughters to marry well.
00:11:15
Speaker
She knows that this is a dire situation for them, right?
00:11:18
Speaker
And women are very often portrayed as, like,
00:11:21
Speaker
bad or vain or sinful or somehow for wanting to advance their own interests.
00:11:25
Speaker
Advocate on their own behalf.
00:11:27
Speaker
To advocate for their daughters, right?
00:11:29
Speaker
But that's something you have to do, like, as a mother.
00:11:32
Speaker
So I don't see her as a villain at all for that.
00:11:34
Speaker
I think she was just doing her job.
00:11:36
Speaker
Well, and then contrast her between Daphne's mother, Lady
Anthony Bridgerton's Hypocrisy and Relationships
00:11:40
Speaker
Bridgerton, who just kind of...
00:11:42
Speaker
like she lets Anthony run the show.
00:11:45
Speaker
And I guess, cause he's the elder of all of them.
00:11:48
Speaker
He kind of gets.
00:11:48
Speaker
I fucking hate Anthony.
00:11:49
Speaker
I'll get to that in a sec, but I hate Anthony.
00:11:53
Speaker
Well, yeah, we'll get to, we'll get to Anthony.
00:11:54
Speaker
So, right.
00:11:56
Speaker
So she lets Anthony run the show and she doesn't tell Daphne anything about marriage or how to handle men.
00:12:03
Speaker
And so part of the drama towards the
00:12:06
Speaker
end of the season is because Daphne's learning in quick succession all these things that perhaps her mother should have clued her in on as far as marriage and sex versus I think Lady Featherington would have never let her daughters go in a situation like that ignorant, right?
00:12:22
Speaker
So I'm like, when you look at the contrast between, okay, yes, Daphne's beautiful and pretty and innocent and has like, you know, a pleasant, high posh demeanor, but she's also completely unequipped for the job.
00:12:34
Speaker
Like...
00:12:35
Speaker
She makes a ton of missteps because no one really gives her a clue on her family about what kinds of things are expected of her and, you know, unpleasant things at times or that's going to be expected of her as a wife and a mother.
00:12:51
Speaker
And I thought that Lady Bridgerton just totally, yeah, did not prepare her daughters at all for the reality of marriage.
00:12:58
Speaker
She was just going on about, like, oh, like, Bridgerton's married for love, and, like, you know, you'll find a man that you love, and blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:13:05
Speaker
And I feel like she just wasn't being...
00:13:07
Speaker
realistic with Daphne.
00:13:09
Speaker
She wasn't being honest.
00:13:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:11
Speaker
She wasn't being honest with her about the reality of what it's like to be a woman in this world.
00:13:14
Speaker
And, and so, and so that kind of brings us to the more controversial portion of what Lady Featherington ultimately decided with Marina, which was that they were going to scheme to seduce Colin Bridgerton.
00:13:29
Speaker
and try to get him to have sex with her so that they could plausibly pass the baby off as Collins, right?
00:13:37
Speaker
Which was like, ooh, a scandalo, right?
00:13:39
Speaker
Which causes Penelope, aka Lady Whistledown, to freak out and then reveal, betray her friend, and reveal the fact that
00:13:49
Speaker
Marina is pregnant in her.
00:13:51
Speaker
I thought Penelope was kind of a dick for that.
00:13:53
Speaker
Like, yeah, yeah.
00:13:55
Speaker
I mean, I, that's again, that's Shonda.
00:13:57
Speaker
Like she always, she always undermines characters.
00:14:00
Speaker
So they're never totally good, which I think is, I think it's great overall because it shows you, you know,
00:14:06
Speaker
It shows you how you can have all the missteps that they make in places where people could advocate for themselves, even while they're being wronged or victimized.
00:14:15
Speaker
And I think it kind of gives you a lot of complex lessons to think about.
00:14:18
Speaker
So I enjoy her writing from that perspective.
00:14:21
Speaker
But did you guys, did you guys, what did you guys think of that plot?
00:14:26
Speaker
I mean, the whole time watching Bridgerton, I felt uneasy because of, yeah, like the reproductive coercion stuff.
00:14:36
Speaker
Like Simon and Daphne, for example, she just like rides his dick and doesn't let him pull out because she like just forces him to like impregnate her, right?
00:14:44
Speaker
I'm like, that was going to happen.
00:14:47
Speaker
Like, okay, so he shouldn't have forced him, but there was no way he was pulling out for 20 years.
00:14:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:51
Speaker
Right.
00:14:52
Speaker
Was he going to pull out for the entire 20 years of like that she's fertile?
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:56
Speaker
There was no way.
00:14:57
Speaker
Right.
00:14:58
Speaker
And also pull out method is like the
Reproductive Coercion and Its Implications
00:15:00
Speaker
worst, like contraception.
00:15:01
Speaker
Like she would have gotten like, there's pre-cum.
00:15:03
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:03
Speaker
She would have gotten pregnant eventually.
00:15:05
Speaker
But yeah, so then the whole baby trapping theme.
00:15:09
Speaker
I don't know.
00:15:10
Speaker
I don't know how I feel about those kinds of plot lines because it's just playing into that trope of like... How do I say this?
00:15:19
Speaker
Women are doing this out of necessity because of the world that they live in and they're being portrayed as evil for trying to make the best of an already shit situation.
00:15:27
Speaker
Right.
00:15:28
Speaker
I mean, they're trying to...
00:15:31
Speaker
Create an advantageous situation in an oppressive system, right?
00:15:35
Speaker
I feel like if you look at it from the perspective that they're existing in an oppressive system.
00:15:40
Speaker
So, you know, when you look at Lady Featherington and her ruthless practicality, it's kind of hard to be mad at her because I'm kind of like, well, yeah, because men set the system up for women to fail.
00:15:51
Speaker
So...
00:15:52
Speaker
It's hard for me to feel bad for them because you're looking at this from the perspective.
00:15:56
Speaker
It's either this or she get married off to some old, disgusting old man.
00:16:01
Speaker
There was some guy that there was some other suitor that was looking at her and he was clearly old, like in his 50s, 60s, 70s.
00:16:06
Speaker
He was disgusting.
00:16:06
Speaker
Right.
00:16:07
Speaker
And so the options for her was marry this disgusting old man and basically be raped like, you know, some guy she clearly is not attracted to.
00:16:18
Speaker
Or try to baby trap Colin.
00:16:20
Speaker
And I'm like, well, that's clearly the better option, right?
00:16:25
Speaker
And that's exactly it.
00:16:26
Speaker
Like people will be like, oh, you should have just done the right thing and married some old geezer.
00:16:30
Speaker
But what is the right thing?
00:16:31
Speaker
Like the right thing in this situation is the one that has the least harmful effect on men and like the most harmful effect on women, right?
00:16:40
Speaker
Right.
00:16:41
Speaker
I don't really blame women.
00:16:42
Speaker
You're talking about 40 years of that, right?
00:16:45
Speaker
40 years of, I mean, not even having sex, like being sexually assaulted by a disgusting old man.
00:16:50
Speaker
Like that, that to me is the reality of that.
00:16:53
Speaker
That's kind of the reality.
00:16:53
Speaker
They always gloss over whenever they do these period pieces and they marry a woman off to these gross old men.
00:17:00
Speaker
It's not just that it's gross.
00:17:01
Speaker
It's that it's literally repulsive and you're going to have to either be assaulted or and cry yourself to sleep every night.
00:17:08
Speaker
Right.
00:17:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:10
Speaker
Like, I'm watching a different show, Z, The Beginning of Everything, which is about Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, who we should totally talk about in a different episode, because this is a great show.
00:17:20
Speaker
But there's this one scene where Zelda, who's already had sex, by the way, but her older sister is telling her, there's something about marriage I need you to know.
00:17:27
Speaker
Whenever you have, whenever your husband wants you to do your wifely duties, just, like, lie back and imagine the garden, and it'll be over with soon.
00:17:35
Speaker
Like, that is what, like, women were told about sex at this time.
00:17:39
Speaker
Like, that you're not supposed to enjoy it.
00:17:41
Speaker
That you have to do it for your husband.
00:17:44
Speaker
Like, I'm just thinking about how many times women got married and every single time they had sex, it was basically rape.
00:17:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's gross, right?
00:17:50
Speaker
And you're just listening to it like, yeah, you know what?
00:17:52
Speaker
If I was in her position, I think that would obviously be the better option.
00:17:57
Speaker
And I think Lady Featherington was a real one.
00:17:59
Speaker
I think she was an absolute boss in that scene where she was like, girl, girl, if you can pull this off, you better hurry it up.
00:18:06
Speaker
She was just basically so supportive.
00:18:09
Speaker
And I was like, you know what?
00:18:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:11
Speaker
That's why ultimately, even though she kind of comes across negatively at first, and it does seem like the show was trying to set her up as the villain, I actually think she's the realist and...
00:18:20
Speaker
the kind of cruel to be kind type that I think sometimes FDS, the kind of the role that sometimes FDS plays and why sometimes we get called mean.
00:18:30
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, but we're also like trying to help you win right now.
00:18:35
Speaker
Right.
00:18:36
Speaker
You know, and I think just like Lady Featherington, it's also we, you know, FDS is about being, you know, pragmatic and understanding the situation that you're in, especially as women where we are already disadvantaged in so many ways.
00:18:53
Speaker
And I think people, especially when it comes from women, when a guy is pragmatic, he's seen as, you know, logical, a boss.
00:18:59
Speaker
He's on top.
00:19:01
Speaker
He's, you know, he's competent.
00:19:03
Speaker
But when a woman is being pragmatic and bases her actions based on the environment that she's in, she's manipulative or she's scheming.
00:19:13
Speaker
Right.
00:19:14
Speaker
It's never like, oh, she's a strategy genius, right?
00:19:17
Speaker
I would look at it like she's a strategic genius, right?
00:19:20
Speaker
This is a person who has looked at the obstacles, looked at what's in front of her, and she's creating a way for herself.
00:19:27
Speaker
Oh, and the other thing to remember with Featherington is like the whole reason why she's in that situation is because of her piece of shit husband's gambling.
00:19:34
Speaker
Right.
00:19:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, let's not forget about that.
00:19:38
Speaker
You are so right.
00:19:39
Speaker
The fact that he like
Lady Featherington's Struggles and Family Dynamics
00:19:40
Speaker
gambled all their savings away and he had to take on all these extra burdens to pay his debts is the reason why Lady Featherington is in pretty much all the situations of that season.
00:19:51
Speaker
Because he even tried to block one of the suitors of one of their daughters because of some debts.
00:19:57
Speaker
So it's like...
00:20:00
Speaker
All her problems are caused by her terrible husband.
00:20:02
Speaker
Exactly.
00:20:02
Speaker
Like, she is trying to do the best that she can, given a shitty situation.
00:20:06
Speaker
The whole reason why Marina was even there was because he owed some guy a favor.
00:20:11
Speaker
Like, that was his way of paying off a debt, was by hosting Marina for that season or whatever.
00:20:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:18
Speaker
Like most of their problems were Lord Featherington's fault.
00:20:22
Speaker
Right.
00:20:22
Speaker
So she's really just trying to do the best with the, with what she has.
00:20:26
Speaker
So she was my favorite character.
00:20:27
Speaker
So what was your favorite character to love or hate?
00:20:30
Speaker
I'm trying to think.
00:20:31
Speaker
I liked Eloise probably just cause I like personally relate with her the most.
00:20:35
Speaker
Um, but the, I really hated Daphne.
00:20:38
Speaker
I really hated Simon.
00:20:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:40
Speaker
There's so many moments where Daphne, I'm like, you're such a fucking dumb bitch.
00:20:43
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:20:44
Speaker
Like, like there was this one scene where she's like, are you saying just because I'm a woman, I don't have choices?
00:20:51
Speaker
Yes, bitch.
00:20:52
Speaker
She was definitely liberal feminist, like bait at that moment.
00:20:56
Speaker
Cause I remember now I'm, I'm my memories jogging.
00:20:58
Speaker
And I remember that scene too.
00:20:59
Speaker
And having the exact same reaction, like I can make choices on my own.
00:21:03
Speaker
And I'm like, you don't even know what sex is or how sex works.
00:21:07
Speaker
How are you going to go out there and face the political complications?
00:21:11
Speaker
And you don't know how babies are made sis.
00:21:13
Speaker
Like it was kind of,
00:21:15
Speaker
to me, the perfect example of her standing up for herself in all the wrong ways.
00:21:19
Speaker
This is a time where you need to listen to people who have way more insight than you.
00:21:25
Speaker
And it was just so almost tone deaf to her own experience.
00:21:28
Speaker
Like her brother, literally, he basically, he basically scared her away from suitors.
00:21:34
Speaker
And she's talking about having choices as a woman.
00:21:37
Speaker
It's just like, do you not see the cognitive dissonance there?
00:21:40
Speaker
Yeah, so a couple of things.
00:21:42
Speaker
One, women at that time would have not even, like, thought twice about the fact that as women they don't have choices.
00:21:47
Speaker
Like, at the time, it's just obvious, right?
00:21:49
Speaker
Like, they would not have thought twice about the fact that, like, their options are limited because they're women.
00:21:55
Speaker
That's just a fact.
00:21:56
Speaker
They wouldn't have ever said something like, oh, just because I'm a woman, you're saying I don't have choices?
00:22:01
Speaker
fucking obviously, okay?
00:22:03
Speaker
So secondly, she reminds me a lot of, like, liberal feminists who are like, oh, it's my choice to do this, like, you know, the choosy choice feminism kind of thing.
00:22:12
Speaker
But like you said, Daphne doesn't even know what sex is, right?
00:22:15
Speaker
Right.
00:22:15
Speaker
So it reminds me of these, like, you know, the Teen Vogue articles about, like, how to engage in BDSM.
00:22:20
Speaker
You're teaching, like, what, 16, 17-year-olds how to do BDSM.
00:22:25
Speaker
Like,
00:22:25
Speaker
They're, they're fucking kids.
00:22:26
Speaker
They're young.
00:22:27
Speaker
Like, they don't know what's going on.
00:22:28
Speaker
Even when you turn 18, it's not like you suddenly have the world figured out when you turn 18, right?
00:22:33
Speaker
So the idea of, like, consent and choices are, like, meaningless when you're talking about someone who doesn't have the information that they need to make good choices.
00:22:44
Speaker
Right.
00:22:44
Speaker
And she, and she screws up a couple of times because of that, because she accidentally insulted all the townspeople when she didn't pick a pig to slaughter.
00:22:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:53
Speaker
And then they were all mad at her, right?
00:22:55
Speaker
So I was like, that's a perfect example of where she tried to make a decision as, oh, well, I'm the Duchess now, so I'm going to make decisions and I'm going to say, none of these pigs are getting slaughtered.
00:23:04
Speaker
But then they're like, well, this is actually important for you to do because this is how we feed our families.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's very tone deaf.
00:23:12
Speaker
And it also shows the privilege, right?
00:23:16
Speaker
She's so privileged and tone deaf and doesn't understand the struggles of ordinary people and how her decisions impact, how her decisions affect them.
00:23:25
Speaker
And she's thinking about, oh, I just want to be nice and fair and la-di-da.
00:23:31
Speaker
She's living in this fantasy world, right?
00:23:33
Speaker
And it just comes across as insulting to people who are actually affected by it.
00:23:38
Speaker
So Daphne is like the secret villain of the show because she's basically she's basically a liberal feminist.
00:23:43
Speaker
She's the choosy choice feminist that wants to stand up for herself and look amazing and makes all the wrong decisions and does all the self-sabotaging behavior and loves to virtue signal but doesn't actually know what she's talking about.
00:23:56
Speaker
Right.
00:23:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:57
Speaker
She is, she is kind of an easy character to dislike for that reason.
00:24:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:02
Speaker
And the other character I hated was Anthony.
00:24:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:04
Speaker
The whole time I was watching it, I'm thinking this beady eyed motherfucker is evil.
00:24:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:10
Speaker
The whole time I'm watching it, I just hated every scene he was in.
00:24:13
Speaker
He's just so like, it almost felt incestuous.
00:24:18
Speaker
His like obsession with cock blocking his sister.
00:24:22
Speaker
Um, it,
00:24:25
Speaker
creepy as fuck.
00:24:26
Speaker
And to go online and realize that apparently everyone's like, oh my god, Anthony's so cute and so funny.
00:24:31
Speaker
Teeheehee, he's just protective.
00:24:33
Speaker
What?
00:24:34
Speaker
Like, other people are liking him?
00:24:36
Speaker
Like, no, every scene he was in, I hated him.
00:24:39
Speaker
Why do people like this guy?
00:24:40
Speaker
I more or less liked, I liked him only because I thought, okay, he has eldest child syndrome.
00:24:46
Speaker
So I didn't get, like, evil from him, more so that there's insane amounts of responsibility on him.
00:24:53
Speaker
And so that pressure makes him have to make choices that he doesn't love, but also he's kind of a ruthless cut to the chase guy because he's more or less like the weight of everything falls on him, which makes him very, very short sighted.
00:25:08
Speaker
And of course he...
00:25:08
Speaker
I think he's the one that also tried to get Daphne to marry Burbrook, who was like that creepy incel dude.
00:25:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:25:13
Speaker
That was the other thing that drove me crazy, that he was trying to force, like, forced marriage his sister to marry some ugly guy.
00:25:21
Speaker
Like, basically, my reason for that was he's just so uncomfortable with the idea...
00:25:25
Speaker
Like, he's so uncomfortable with the idea of his sister having sex and enjoying it that he's going to force her to marry someone that she doesn't want to have sex with and, like, not caring at all about what she wants.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:36
Speaker
I didn't even get that he thought about that.
00:25:38
Speaker
I think he was just strictly logical.
00:25:40
Speaker
This is a perfect logical match and not taking in the love and passion part of it, but it's
00:25:46
Speaker
To me, it seemed more of a projection of his inability because he had that complicated relationship with Sienna, right?
00:25:51
Speaker
Because he wants to be with that opera singer, but he can't because he's got to marry a woman of a certain status as an eldest son, right?
00:25:58
Speaker
So I got that.
00:25:59
Speaker
I got the controlling thing on his sister, sort of a projection of him trying to control himself because he can't... And even the mother calls him out in a scene, right?
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:09
Speaker
there's a scene where the mother comes to Anthony is basically calling him out for trying to scare away some of the suitors that Daphne likes and saying, Hey, what are you doing?
00:26:19
Speaker
And he's like, well, these aren't suitable matches for her and she can do better.
00:26:22
Speaker
And then the mother comes back at him, like,
00:26:25
Speaker
Well, you know, don't think we don't know about your little side piece, right?
00:26:29
Speaker
Over on the other side of town.
00:26:30
Speaker
And that fact that, you know, you're right now projecting your desire to control yourself onto Daphne, right?
00:26:38
Speaker
Because you can't control yourself and you can't be with
Empowerment Moves by the Opera Singer
00:26:40
Speaker
the person you love.
00:26:40
Speaker
You're making her miserable.
00:26:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:42
Speaker
And his whole relationship with the opera singer was like...
00:26:46
Speaker
It just made me so angry.
00:26:48
Speaker
Like, it was so mean to her.
00:26:49
Speaker
Like, you know, oh, I'm going to take care of you forever.
00:26:53
Speaker
And then, oh, I can't see you again.
00:26:55
Speaker
And just like hot and cold and breadcrumbing her, basically.
00:27:01
Speaker
Oh, for sure.
00:27:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:02
Speaker
What people nowadays identify as like bread crumbing and ghosting and stuff and like just coming back when he's horny kind of thing.
00:27:10
Speaker
I don't know.
00:27:10
Speaker
That whole storyline.
00:27:11
Speaker
I hated Anthony because of that too.
00:27:13
Speaker
Well, I mean, the storyline resolved in the best boss way possible.
00:27:17
Speaker
At the end of the series, she says, look,
00:27:21
Speaker
Nobody out here is going to take care of me but me.
00:27:23
Speaker
So she finds another guy and he shows up to her house with flowers in hand and he opens the door and she got her new man there, halfway dressed.
00:27:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:33
Speaker
And, you know, so I can't help but stand.
00:27:35
Speaker
And I kind of think that was the perfect resolution to that because under no circumstances was he ever going to be able to formally claim her and give her the life that she deserves.
00:27:46
Speaker
Right.
00:27:46
Speaker
So it was more or less like,
00:27:48
Speaker
This was the only outcome, and I'm glad that she got the courage to do it rather than be this guy's side piece forever, watch him get married to someone else, and then just be kind of in the shadow.
00:28:02
Speaker
She went on and she's like, I'm going to take care of myself.
00:28:05
Speaker
I'm going to be with someone who can claim me and love me fully and not this half-assed person.
00:28:09
Speaker
Nonsense.
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, like, the resolution of her story was so FDS.
00:28:13
Speaker
It was like, this guy's stringing me along, isn't gonna be able to commit to me, so I'm just gonna, like, level up and just pick a different guy who can provide those things for me.
00:28:23
Speaker
And ended up having, yeah, a positive resolution of her story.
00:28:26
Speaker
So I was 100% on the side of the opera singer.
00:28:29
Speaker
Anthony was being the shitty fuckboy in this situation.
00:28:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:33
Speaker
Even though she was enjoying it in the moment, there was no long-term potential there.
00:28:35
Speaker
So I think her recognizing that and then advocating for herself.
00:28:39
Speaker
So like when you see these women advocate for themselves in a, in a real way, you know, it's really great to see that in a show like that and feel like it has FDS themes versus the fake advocacy that Daphne, the fake clueless self-advocacy of Daphne.
00:28:54
Speaker
Right.
00:28:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:55
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:28:56
Speaker
Like she was more, um,
00:28:59
Speaker
She's had a smarter version of self.
00:29:01
Speaker
I mean, granted, like, an opera singer would have been more exposed to the realities of the world than, you know, some rich, you know, 18-year-old girl.
00:29:09
Speaker
We hope 18.
00:29:10
Speaker
Did they say how old they are?
00:29:12
Speaker
I think that when women were presented to the court, they were usually between the ages of, like, I think...
00:29:19
Speaker
Yeah, they were like 16, 17, 18, 19-ish.
00:29:22
Speaker
Here's the other thing to remember about Regency.
00:29:24
Speaker
I'm pretty sure this is true, where as a woman, if you had like three seasons and you weren't married, you were considered a spinster.
00:29:32
Speaker
So like the social season is like, yeah, the season where they're trying to get together to like find who to marry or whatever, right?
00:29:38
Speaker
So if a woman has three seasons and she hasn't been married, yeah, she's a spinster.
00:29:42
Speaker
But the men have like an infinite amount of time to...
00:29:46
Speaker
to figure it out, right?
00:29:47
Speaker
There's no time limit for men like there are for women, which is such fucking bullshit.
00:29:52
Speaker
Because when you have that, like, sense of urgency for women, you could have the most beautiful, amazing woman ever.
00:29:58
Speaker
And even low value men will feel confident to just like, lean back and be like, oh, I got all the time in the world kind of thing.
00:30:05
Speaker
Yeah, I remember reading, actually, like, even, like, Jackie Kennedy, she met JFK when she was 22, and she was already deemed too old for marriage, in quotation marks.
00:30:14
Speaker
It was wild.
00:30:15
Speaker
In those days, it was like you wanted to marry a woman when she was young, because then you could mold her to be, like, your perfect sex object.
00:30:22
Speaker
Well, I mean, JFK was still, we should do an episode on JFK, but he was still a massive, disrespectful fuckboy to Jackie.
00:30:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:30:30
Speaker
Low value LVP, low value president.
00:30:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:34
Speaker
Right.
00:30:35
Speaker
LVP.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:37
Speaker
Aren't they all kind of low value?
00:30:39
Speaker
Have we had a high value president?
00:30:40
Speaker
I mean, I guess Obama is probably the closest in recent memory.
00:30:43
Speaker
Probably Lincoln is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.
00:30:47
Speaker
It was like probably a decent person.
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:49
Speaker
No, we should do that.
00:30:50
Speaker
Low value president.
00:30:51
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:52
Speaker
So what was your favorite character to love or to hate?
00:30:56
Speaker
Savannah.
00:30:57
Speaker
I'd probably say Anthony as well.
00:30:59
Speaker
just because I just found his entire attitude really, really gross.
00:31:04
Speaker
And I found it was very, it was almost like, I'm not going to say Jekyll and Hyde, but he almost knew how he wanted his sister to be treated, right?
00:31:15
Speaker
And we see this all the time with men.
00:31:17
Speaker
They'll know, they'll be overprotective of their sisters, but then they'll go out and treat other women like trash.
00:31:22
Speaker
I don't understand that.
00:31:25
Speaker
It's not somebody who has any amount of integrity, right?
00:31:29
Speaker
you know, there.
00:31:30
Speaker
And also Daphne was just generally quite annoying in the sense that she, you know, she thought that she knew more than she did.
00:31:43
Speaker
And even though she's, you know, clearly quite intelligent, she doesn't use that intelligence in a very
00:31:50
Speaker
in any way that's actually beneficial to her or to her situation.
00:31:54
Speaker
I wasn't a fan of the Bridgerton family at all, to be honest, at all.
00:31:59
Speaker
I did actually prefer the Featherington, even the daughters.
00:32:01
Speaker
I found them a bit more, even though they could be a bit
00:32:05
Speaker
I don't know, pompous and prissy, but I found them a bit more likeable.
00:32:09
Speaker
There was something about them that was really likeable.
00:32:12
Speaker
And, and yeah, but yeah, Anthony was definitely, and I'm really, because I actually hadn't got that far in the series, but I'm really, really glad it had that resolution that he didn't end up with the perennial side piece, as was often the case.
00:32:27
Speaker
in those in those times because it was super common for especially rich young men to have mistresses throughout their marriages as well so i'm really glad she realized her worth and thought now i'm out she dumps him she levels up yeah he was disgusting quite frankly
00:32:42
Speaker
So Duke of Hastings, he's been the breakout star of the show.
00:32:46
Speaker
He's been the actor who basically
The Duke of Hastings: A Complex Character
00:32:50
Speaker
all the women are swinging over.
00:32:52
Speaker
And while I find him, I know mentally he's physically attractive.
00:32:57
Speaker
His character is such a fuck boy that I immediately was turned off by him.
00:33:01
Speaker
And I couldn't even find him sexually attractive in the show.
00:33:05
Speaker
And it was from the first moment he's on scene where Daphne's trying to escape Burbrook the bridge troll.
00:33:15
Speaker
And she bumps into the Duke and she's trying to obviously like make small talk so the bridge troll doesn't waddle himself over to her and keep mouth breathing on her anymore.
00:33:27
Speaker
So she's like, what is your name, sir?
00:33:29
Speaker
Like very earnestly polite question.
00:33:32
Speaker
And then the Duke's like, don't you know who I am?
00:33:36
Speaker
You know, he comes off the bat with like this attitude.
00:33:40
Speaker
And I was just like, you could have just...
00:33:43
Speaker
faked a little politeness in that moment.
00:33:45
Speaker
And the fact that he couldn't just even do it for like three seconds to me was so... I actually thought he was more low value, in my opinion, than even Anthony.
00:33:54
Speaker
I know they were going to give him a redeeming character arc, but like his whole attitude from the beginning...
00:33:59
Speaker
was like, I don't want to be here.
00:34:01
Speaker
I don't like these people.
00:34:03
Speaker
And at the same time, very arrogant.
00:34:05
Speaker
Yeah, he's basically like an emo.
00:34:06
Speaker
He's like, he's an emo kid, right?
00:34:08
Speaker
Like, he's just sitting there like, well, like, my dad didn't understand me.
00:34:12
Speaker
And I have unresolved childhood trauma.
00:34:15
Speaker
And I'm so sad and moody.
00:34:18
Speaker
Blah, blah, blah.
00:34:19
Speaker
I hate guys like that, honestly.
00:34:21
Speaker
Like, there's someone who find that type of man attractive, I guess.
00:34:25
Speaker
I just find them to be like emotional vampires.
00:34:27
Speaker
They're just unbearable to be around.
00:34:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:30
Speaker
And it is emotionally vampiric.
00:34:31
Speaker
And I'm like, and that's why as soon as he would get on the screen, my vagina would dry up like the Sahara.
00:34:37
Speaker
And also all of their sex scenes, I did not enjoy any of their sex scenes.
00:34:41
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:34:41
Speaker
They were just like so gratuitous.
00:34:44
Speaker
Like I like a good sex scene in a good movie.
00:34:46
Speaker
Like when it's done well, I can enjoy like a sex scene in...
00:34:50
Speaker
movie, right?
00:34:51
Speaker
But for them, it was just like... It was awkward because she looks so young to me, too.
00:34:55
Speaker
I guess they never say their age, but I'm like, she's really supposed to be like 15, 16?
00:34:58
Speaker
Yeah, she looks a lot younger than him.
00:35:00
Speaker
She looks like a good 10, 15 years younger than him.
00:35:03
Speaker
So all of their sex scenes, I don't know.
00:35:04
Speaker
I just feel like I'm watching child porn.
00:35:06
Speaker
It just is deeply upsetting.
00:35:08
Speaker
Yeah, so it was the combination of his emo kid attitude.
00:35:12
Speaker
It was a combination of her looking really young and innocent and pretty clueless about everything.
00:35:17
Speaker
And then he's obviously been around the block.
00:35:20
Speaker
And it's supposed to be kind of a sexy dynamic, but instead it just came across a little weird in the sex scenes.
00:35:26
Speaker
Although I did kind of like the scenes where they had some touching emotional intimacy moments.
00:35:32
Speaker
But it always came across to me more like their relationship, even when they were supposed to be hotly passionately in love, still came across to me as a friendship more than, or like a lovesick girl really in love with this guy who can't really emotionally be there for her fully.
00:35:49
Speaker
And it gave me more friend energy than like a relationship between equal partners.
00:35:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:57
Speaker
Like the whole premise of their relationship
00:35:59
Speaker
romance, quote unquote romance with the whole like, oh, I'm going to pretend to be into you so that other guys get jealous and then we'll want you more and all that.
00:36:10
Speaker
Like, I don't, I just didn't buy that.
00:36:11
Speaker
Like, I mean, it makes sense.
00:36:12
Speaker
Like, I mean, it makes sense actually, like, cause FDS, we talk about mate guarding and stuff and how men are competitive.
00:36:18
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:36:19
Speaker
That's a good example then.
00:36:20
Speaker
That's actually a good example of one of the principles in the handbook.
00:36:23
Speaker
Which was, hey, go to a place where you're likely to encounter mate competition because that is a real thing with men.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, like men will see another high-value man desiring something.
00:36:34
Speaker
And then that's the other thing.
00:36:35
Speaker
Men are very like, they'll copy what they consider to be like alpha.
00:36:40
Speaker
Like if they see like an alpha...
00:36:42
Speaker
or whatever, I don't know, I hate the term, like, alpha, beta, or whatever, but, you know, men tend to idolize certain types of men, and then will copy them, right?
00:36:50
Speaker
So, if the Duke of Hastings is the so-called alpha in the situation, he's going for Daphne, the idea then is like, oh, then all the other guys are going to copy him and try to get Daphne, or whatever.
00:36:59
Speaker
But the whole premise of it just bothered me, it was stupid.
00:37:02
Speaker
It's hard to stand their romance when the entire relationship started on deception, but an additional deception on the part of the Duke of Hastings about being able to have a child.
00:37:14
Speaker
And then Daphne signing up for that when she could have had the prince, by the way, who the prince to me was way more like emotionally engaging and way more...
00:37:24
Speaker
genuine and like securely attached that she could have been with.
00:37:28
Speaker
But instead she chooses this guy who is all over the place, right?
00:37:32
Speaker
And doesn't even want kids and she knows she wants a family.
00:37:35
Speaker
So there's so many self-sabotaging decisions in there and places where she could, she should have did better.
00:37:41
Speaker
I'm so tired of stories where the heroine or whatever is going after like the emotionally unavailable, inconsistent, worse option, right?
00:37:51
Speaker
Like the whole Edward versus what's the other guy's name?
00:37:54
Speaker
Jacob, right?
00:37:55
Speaker
Like the werewolf guy versus the vampire guy.
00:37:57
Speaker
I always liked the werewolf guy more.
00:37:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:59
Speaker
Like he seemed like better relationship material from Swilight.
00:38:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:03
Speaker
Basically, yeah, I'm so done of the trope of like the girl goes for like the worst option.
00:38:08
Speaker
Like, why?
00:38:09
Speaker
Like, why would you do that?
00:38:10
Speaker
Why not just go for the one who's clearly better?
00:38:12
Speaker
I guess because they need to fill up story time.
00:38:14
Speaker
Yeah, if they just find like a perfect guy and marry him, like there's no melodrama, right?
00:38:18
Speaker
So when they're going for the guy who's worse, I guess there's more drama.
00:38:22
Speaker
But the whole scene with the duel, okay?
00:38:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:24
Speaker
That scene made me so angry because, like, they're about to shoot each other.
00:38:28
Speaker
And she's like, no, no, like, if, you know, you have to marry me or else my reputation is ruined.
00:38:34
Speaker
And then he still says no.
00:38:35
Speaker
It's like, sis, he literally said he would rather die than marry you, okay?
00:38:39
Speaker
Like...
00:38:41
Speaker
What is she not understanding in this situation?
00:38:44
Speaker
Like he said over and over again that he does not want to marry her.
00:38:47
Speaker
He would literally rather die.
00:38:49
Speaker
And she's just, and then, and then she's like, oh no, there's no need to continue.
00:38:53
Speaker
Like we're to be married anyways.
00:38:55
Speaker
It's like, bitch, that's not what he fucking said.
00:38:57
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:57
Speaker
He just said no.
00:38:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:39:00
Speaker
She kind of, yeah, no means no, Daphne.
00:39:02
Speaker
Exactly.
00:39:04
Speaker
Like, she needed to have accepted that and taken that L and really, again, advocated for herself.
00:39:10
Speaker
And, well, she kind of fake advocates for herself when she thinks the Duke isn't coming around, so she goes and, like, flirts with the Prince.
00:39:17
Speaker
And then...
00:39:19
Speaker
the Duke of Hastings gets all in his feelings, but I'm like, you're supposed to leave him in his feelings.
00:39:24
Speaker
You're not supposed to do it just so he'll come back and get more jealous and you'll go back to him anyways.
00:39:29
Speaker
Otherwise you kind of defeat the purpose, right?
00:39:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:33
Speaker
Like the whole, like, Oh, I'm going to like, he's being off and on.
00:39:36
Speaker
So I'm going to like make him jealous by going, I'm going to flirt with another guy and that'll make him want me or whatever.
00:39:41
Speaker
Like, okay, cool.
00:39:42
Speaker
Like he's going to want you for what?
00:39:43
Speaker
Five minutes.
00:39:44
Speaker
but then you have to marry him and somehow be in a relationship with this person for years.
00:39:50
Speaker
And you think that that moment of jealousy is going to save that?
00:39:53
Speaker
No, that's not the foundation for a lasting relationship, Daphne.
00:39:57
Speaker
Yeah, he's kind of a low valley man all around.
00:40:00
Speaker
But I do think...
00:40:02
Speaker
There's one guy on the show who, at least from my initial impressions, was high value, which is Will the Boxer.
00:40:09
Speaker
If you remember, he was the boxing partner of... Of the Duke's boxing partner.
00:40:15
Speaker
Of the Duke, right.
00:40:15
Speaker
I think something like that.
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:18
Speaker
Yeah, his coach.
00:40:19
Speaker
And he was also being sponsored monetarily by the Duke as a fighter.
00:40:23
Speaker
So, Lord Featherington creates a bet where he bets against Will the Boxer.
00:40:32
Speaker
And then he goes to Will the Boxer and he says, if you throw this match, then I'll give you half my earnings.
00:40:37
Speaker
And Will the Boxer...
00:40:39
Speaker
You know, his ego gets in the way and his honor gets in the way.
00:40:42
Speaker
But then he looks at the practical reality of, hey, I'm getting slower, I'm aging, and I need to take care of my family.
00:40:49
Speaker
I like the whole arc where you see him kind of put his pride aside to think about the future of his children and his wife.
00:40:55
Speaker
All the scenes with his wife and kids was so cute and wholesome.
00:40:58
Speaker
Like that just made me, that was like the only healthy relationship or one of the only healthy relationships in the whole show.
00:41:03
Speaker
Right.
00:41:03
Speaker
And they gave him, they gave him a complicated choice, but they kind of showed how he's, he's a guy of great integrity and a guy of great honor.
00:41:12
Speaker
Right.
00:41:12
Speaker
But he goes and does something that he knows is not the most integritous, but he does it for the most altruistic of reasons.
00:41:19
Speaker
Right.
00:41:20
Speaker
So complicated guy who makes complicated decisions, but still kind of,
00:41:25
Speaker
prioritizes the correct part of his life, right?
00:41:29
Speaker
Because I think it would have been a little bit different if it was like, I'm going to keep fighting as long as my body can do it, knowing he's going to break down and then not afford to feed his family.
00:41:38
Speaker
His ego would get in the way.
00:41:39
Speaker
Yeah, like the idea that of a man being able to set aside their ego and do the right thing or do the right thing for his family.
00:41:46
Speaker
I think that's an admirable trait.
00:41:48
Speaker
I agree.
00:41:48
Speaker
That gave me like zaddy energy, right?
00:41:50
Speaker
Versus the Duke where I know they were trying to make him the sexy love interest.
00:41:54
Speaker
And I was more like, what?
00:41:55
Speaker
Let's find out more about Will the Boxer.
00:41:57
Speaker
I also want to talk about the, I guess, the childhood trauma that the Duke went through.
00:42:02
Speaker
Because I think Will the Boxer is a good foil for the Duke.
00:42:07
Speaker
Like, Will the Boxer is willing to put aside his ego, do the right thing for his family.
00:42:11
Speaker
And the Duke of Hastings is the opposite of that.
00:42:14
Speaker
He is like, no, I made this promise to my father that I would never marry, never have kids, and this lion would die with me.
00:42:20
Speaker
And then, yeah, he does change his mind eventually in the end.
00:42:24
Speaker
But he definitely, like, you know, definitely even calls him out for living his life for someone who's dead and not living his life for himself.
00:42:32
Speaker
Right.
00:42:32
Speaker
So he had, he makes an ego play.
00:42:35
Speaker
He makes an ego play and he's self-sabotaging his own life and his potential for happiness for a dead man.
00:42:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:42
Speaker
And like, why would you, I don't understand people who do this sort of like self-sabotaging, like inflicting suffering on themselves and others around them just to spite someone else who hurt them.
00:42:54
Speaker
You know, yeah, your dad was shitty.
00:42:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:56
Speaker
Yeah, that was traumatizing.
00:42:57
Speaker
But like, your dad's dead now.
00:42:59
Speaker
You're the new Duke.
00:43:00
Speaker
Now you can live life on your terms the way that you want it, right?
00:43:03
Speaker
I don't understand people who like hurt themselves.
00:43:06
Speaker
I mean, it's not rational, but it's real, right?
00:43:09
Speaker
People do that all the time.
00:43:10
Speaker
It doesn't make rational sense.
00:43:11
Speaker
It's an emotional thing with people.
00:43:13
Speaker
I will say, I wish they had like fleshed it out a little bit more because they basically say he doesn't want to have kids because of his anger against his father.
00:43:22
Speaker
But in the books, I found out that it's a little bit more complicated than that.
00:43:25
Speaker
Not by much, but basically because he had a speech impediment, he was afraid of having a child that would have a speech impediment and be treated badly.
00:43:34
Speaker
So they didn't really say that in the show, which made, I think the Duke's aversion to children come across a lot more one dimensional and selfish than
00:43:43
Speaker
But the book, I guess, does a better job of fleshing out his motivation.
00:43:47
Speaker
So some of that, I want to say, might be the show writing of not making him very sympathetic about that.
00:43:53
Speaker
But if it was like truly just, I'm super mad at my daddy, so I'm never doing this.
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah, he needs to grow the hell up.
00:43:58
Speaker
But this might have been fan fiction, but the other person was saying, well, yeah, women died during childbirth.
00:44:04
Speaker
Maybe it was also a desire not for his wife to die to bring a child into the world, but that's never stated.
00:44:10
Speaker
So then you just come across...
00:44:12
Speaker
this this his statement and you take it at face value and you're like wow this guy really sucks and he needs to like get over him yeah like i almost wish the show made it so that oh like his mother died during childbirth he doesn't want to do that to like a woman that he loves right so i would actually find him way more sympathetic if he'd said something like that um
00:44:32
Speaker
Oh, and one last thing.
00:44:33
Speaker
I want to talk about how, like, the scenes where the Duke of Hastings' dad was, like, yelling at him.
00:44:38
Speaker
It was like, damn, like, calm down.
00:44:40
Speaker
Like, you're, like, his son stutters, like, once, and he's like, my son is an imbecile!
00:44:47
Speaker
Bro, chill.
00:44:49
Speaker
I have sired a failure.
00:44:51
Speaker
Like, it's just so over... I mean, I do know people who have parents like that who are legitimately so emotionally abusive that, you know, everything the child does is wrong.
00:45:00
Speaker
And, like, from an outside perspective, it almost seems over the top.
00:45:04
Speaker
But for someone who's experienced, like, parental abuse, it's not over the top and it's very real.
00:45:09
Speaker
So... I think it was one of those...
00:45:14
Speaker
conditions that were very, very misunderstood.
00:45:16
Speaker
And because it was so... I'm not sure if anyone here has seen the King's speech, for example, but because it was so misunderstood, people just literally thought at the time.
00:45:26
Speaker
They still do now to some extent, but if somebody had a stutter, you were literally an imbecile.
00:45:32
Speaker
I mean, back then, and I suppose even now, there's still...
00:45:37
Speaker
There is anywhere near enough research that's been done into the condition.
00:45:40
Speaker
They don't know what causes it, how it happens.
00:45:43
Speaker
And it's effectively untreatable, right?
00:45:45
Speaker
So I guess the father's outburst, whilst it seems over the top, in that context, when you have a condition that you don't know where it's come from, so they're not sure if it's genetic or how to treat it.
00:45:59
Speaker
Again, this isn't really excusing it at all, because it is especially...
00:46:05
Speaker
you know, if the person has it, it's very mentally distressing.
00:46:08
Speaker
It can seem like the worst thing in the world.
00:46:10
Speaker
And especially back then as well, if we look at the context, you know, the, you know, I guess, you know, the Duke was going to be the heir to his father.
00:46:20
Speaker
you know, they had to be perfect, essentially.
00:46:22
Speaker
If there was any, you know, form of, you know, defect, it would be, it'll be, it'll be deeply undesirable.
00:46:29
Speaker
And, you know, something like a stutter, you can't really hide as well.
00:46:32
Speaker
If a guy is, if a guy is somewhat short, he can make up for it in other ways by having money, as my mother always, as my mother always said.
00:46:41
Speaker
Because her dad was five foot and my grandmother was five foot nine.
00:46:46
Speaker
So she was like, yeah, it's money made up for the extra 10 inches.
00:46:53
Speaker
But they usually don't have money anyway.
00:46:56
Speaker
But anyway, that's an aside.
00:46:57
Speaker
But, you know, if it's the way you speak, that's the only way you really communicate with the world, right?
00:47:04
Speaker
So I did feel that on a personal level.
00:47:07
Speaker
I felt like, yeah, that's...
00:47:09
Speaker
um that's tough that is really tough that's not the only time i felt sorry for him though in the whole like series after that i was like you're a dick besides that i liked i mean i i liked how lady danbury you know i wish i wish they had fleshed out her character a little bit more i'm hoping they do that in later seasons but i like
00:47:31
Speaker
them having this kind of strong maternal figure.
00:47:33
Speaker
Because at first, she's almost like just there to make wisecracks.
00:47:36
Speaker
But then you see her relationship with the Duke and you kind of soften towards her and understand, like, she's very kind-hearted and she works with him and helps him grow into the person he is there.
00:47:49
Speaker
So I kind of feel like, you know, her character...
00:47:52
Speaker
during that whole thing, you know, it was an interesting arc for her as well.
00:47:56
Speaker
I loved Lady Danbury.
00:47:57
Speaker
That's another character that I would say is like in my favorite, like I love the strong female characters.
00:48:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:03
Speaker
Lady Featherington, Lady Danbury, um, the Queen Charlotte.
00:48:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:09
Speaker
Queen Charlotte also, even though she's kind of like, Oh yeah.
00:48:12
Speaker
I loved Queen Charlotte.
00:48:13
Speaker
She was so petty, but I loved it.
00:48:15
Speaker
I don't know why I love, I loved her messiness.
00:48:19
Speaker
Yeah, she loved, like, the gossip column, right?
00:48:21
Speaker
So I'm, like, kind of relatable.
00:48:24
Speaker
And it's so interesting because the real Queen Charlotte, who's married to George III, like, he was insane for the last, like, what, 10 years, something like that, of their marriage?
00:48:36
Speaker
I don't know exactly how long, but she was thought to be, like, the first...
00:48:40
Speaker
Black Queen, like, quote-unquote Black Queen, because she was descended from, like, the Portuguese, like, what is it, the, they had some Moorish ancestry.
00:48:50
Speaker
So I just find that, like, a very good, like, historical kind of reference there.
00:48:56
Speaker
Good stuff.
00:48:57
Speaker
Oh, and one last thing I wanted to bring up.
00:48:58
Speaker
So I watched a video by The Take about Bridgerton.
00:49:04
Speaker
And before I watched The Take's take on it, I really didn't like Bridgerton.
00:49:08
Speaker
But once I saw The Take talk about it, I really liked it.
00:49:12
Speaker
They basically talk about how...
00:49:15
Speaker
Bridgerton is like a show about today.
00:49:17
Speaker
Like, it's not meant to be something necessarily like a historically accurate period piece.
00:49:23
Speaker
It's supposed to be an allegory of today.
00:49:25
Speaker
And like, the Whistledown stuff is supposed to represent like social media and how your reputation can...
00:49:31
Speaker
is dependent on others and it's very important.
00:49:33
Speaker
It could like go wrong at, you know, a moment's notice and that sort of thing.
00:49:37
Speaker
And the idea that I liked the most from it was the idea that masculinity, they're living in a world where masculinity is in decline and femininity is on the rise.
00:49:47
Speaker
like you see that in a lot of the male characters, they're weak.
00:49:49
Speaker
Like the gambling guy, right?
00:49:51
Speaker
Anthony is like obsessive and shitty, right?
00:49:54
Speaker
Like the men all kind of suck in this story and the women mostly are pretty awesome and are in a much stronger position.
00:50:01
Speaker
And so I think the idea of looking at it through the lens of what is it, what is it saying about nowadays, like in this, these sort of turbulent times in which men are declining as a class and women are ascending as a class, um,
00:50:16
Speaker
So I thought that was an interpretation that I really enjoyed.
00:50:19
Speaker
That's what made me actually like Bridgerton in the end.
00:50:22
Speaker
And thusly, we have reached the completion of our program.
00:50:26
Speaker
Please navigate to the World Wide Web and visit our website at thefemaledatingstrategy.com.
00:50:34
Speaker
And we humbly request that you support our Patreon.
00:50:38
Speaker
at patreon.com forward slash the female dating strategy.
00:50:43
Speaker
Thank you for listening, queens.
00:50:45
Speaker
And for all you burgeoning Wolfgang Amadeus Scroatsots, please perish in a fit of rage.
00:50:52
Speaker
Ta-ta!